August 7, 2009 - Interesting Fact

August 7, 2009 - Interesting Fact

At 12hr 34 minutes and 56 seconds on the 7th of August this year, the time and date will be

12:34:56 07/08/09

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

This will never happen in your life again... ;)

Longest Solar Eclipse a Once in a Lifetime Occurrence

The longest solar eclipse of this century will occur on Wednesday, July 22, 2009.

Large areas of India and China are expected to go dark for a period of about five minutes.

Scores of visitors are expected to travel into the area to witness and study the rare event.

On Wednesday, July 22, 2009, some parts of the world will be witnessing one of the most spectacular celestial phenomenon of total solar eclipse of the 21st century. This total solar eclipse which will occur due to the hiding of the Sun behind the Moon will turn the day into dark for about 6 minutes and 58 seconds.

This total solar eclipse will be visible in India, especially in the following cities-Surat, Baroda, Indore, Bhopal, Varanasi, Patna, Danapur and Guwahati. A partial eclipse can be seen in Southeast Asia including over entire India and China.

People of the Udupi district can also see nearly 75 per cent of the solar eclipse. According to a report the greatest phase of partial eclipse will be at 6 hours 20 minutes and will last till 7 hours 16 minutes.

The Taregna village near Danapur in the district of Patna in Bihar has become the focus of the astronomers as they believe that the total solar eclipse can be seen in its full glory. It is said that the ancient astronomer, Aryabhatta, who was born in Pataliputra (modern Patna) in 476 AD used to observe the heavenly bodies from this village.

The total solar eclipse of July 22 2009 will be visible across south-east Asia and the western Pacific. This will be a spectacular total eclipse, lasting over 6½ minutes at maximum and visible to millions of people over a path up to 258 km wide.

The total eclipse begins just off the coast of India at 00:51:17 UT on July 22, and ends in Polynesia at 04:19:26 UT on July 22. The maximum eclipse is at 02:35:21 UT on July 22, when the total phase will last a stunning 6 minutes and 39 seconds. The partial eclipse will be visible over south-east Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Pacific between 23:58:19 UT on July 21 and 05:12:25 UT on July 22.

Top 10 Underrated Wordpress Plugins

There are several lists of “Top 10” Wordpress plugins around the Internet. Most of them, however, refer to the best or most popular plugins. Guess what, I’ve had enough of Akismet, Adsense Deluxe, Related Entries and company!

Jokes apart, those plugins are certainly awesome, but there are many others out there that can be life savers, and people often neglect them. Below you will the Top 10 Underrated Wordpress plugins; if you think there is a plugin missing on the list just post a comment.

1. Custom Querry String

Wordpress is a very flexible platform, but regulating the number of posts that are supposed to be displayed on the different pages is quite difficult. Most of the times you will want to display a limited number of posts on the Homepage while displaying a larger list for the categories, archives or search results pages, and this is not possible through the control panel. The solution for this problem is the Custom Querry String plugin, which allows you to configure this number individually for each page type.

2. Head Meta Description

While the Meta Keywords Tag is no longer used by most search engines, the Meta Description Tag still has some influence. Having the same Description Tag on all your pages, however, might be inneficient and send part of your website to the supplemental hell. This plugin is extremely easy to install and it will create a dynamic Meta Description Tag for every page on your blog, based on post excerpts or on the first words of the page.

3. Clean Archives

Most blogs have a “Monthly Archives” section on their sidebar, displaying a huge list of months and wasting some precious space. A more efficient structure for your archives would be a single page where all the posts are displayed, month by month. That is exactly what this plugin will do (you can see an example here). Notice that you might need the plugin below to install this one successfully.

4. Exec-PHP

Many plugins or Wordpress features require that you run some PHP code. When you need to use those features or plugins inside static pages or posts, however, Wordpress will not recognize the code. The solution for this problem is the Exec-PHP plugin. Once installed the plugin will enable PHP code on virtually all the pages of your blog. There are similar plugins available, but this one is the most reliable.

5. Enforce www. Preference

If your site can be accessed through http://www.domain.com and http://domain.com you might have some problems over the long run. Most search engines treat those addresses as two different domains, spliting your backlink count. In order to solve this issue you need to setup a 301 Permanent Redirect. The are several ways to setup this redirect, but if you are not familiar with PHP or if your host is not Linux based (for the .htaccess file) this plugin represents the simplest one. You just need to activate it and all the visitors and search bots will get redirected to the address that is specified on the Wordpress control panel.

6. Chunk URLs

Ever experienced someone posting a huge URL on your comment section? Those long strings are not only ugly, but they might also break the design of your website on certain browsers. This plugin will trunk those long URLs into smaller ones, and you can even specify the amount of characters that the output should contain.

7. Sig2feed

Sploggers are feed stealers are spreading out like fire. The first measure to protect your content is to add a copyright notice to your feed, possibly with a link pointing to your site. Sig2feed is a very light plugin that will do just that.

8. FeedSmith

This plugin used to be called Feedburner Feed Replacement. It was so popular and efficient that Feedburner itself decided to buy it from the developer. Basically it will forward all the requests for your Wordpress feed to Feedburner. It is very useful if you started using Feedburner after having some subscribers, or if you want to make sure that your feed statistics are completely accurate.

9. Jerome’s Keywords

This plugin is very similar to the Ultimate Tag Warrior, but it is much more user friendly. Once the plugin is installed you will be able to tag individual posts and to create an internal tag system and tag clouds. Secondly you can also use it to generate a dynamic Meta Keywords Tag.

10. WP-Cache

WP-Cache is a very robust plugin that will increase the responsiveness of your website and reduce the server load. It is also very useful to handle sudden burts in traffic coming from social bookmarking sites. The plugin basically creates static versions of your pages and serves them without querrying the MySQL database.

Use These 10 Tips to Write Your Most Popular Post Ever

One popular post can bring your more traffic and links than a month’s worth of your usual content.

In this post, I want to set you a challenge with the potential to launch your blog into the stratosphere.

Make the next post you write your most popular post ever.

The following ten tips form my key advice for tackling this task. I used all of them when hitting the Digg front page for the first time. There’s no blueprint you can follow to write an incredibly popular post, but you won’t have a chance unless you try. I’m confident these tips will give you a good shot at success.

1. Time is more important than talent. Work on something for eight hours and you can bet it will be good. You don’t need to spend that long, however (though that’s how long it took me to craft the first post I wrote that hit the Digg front page). More time means you can refine, format and fill your post with plenty of value. Take the time to really craft your content. It will show in the finished product.

2. Use your best idea. A post will never become wildly popular unless it fulfills a need, and does so emphatically. What’s something your niche wants but hasn’t got yet? Can you assemble a whole lot of really awesome (targeted) resources in one place? The more your posts helps people, the better it will do.

3. Use formatting to your advantage. These days, social media is key when it comes to launching your posts into the stratosphere. Social media users are notoriously spoiled for choice, however. Use formatting to emphasize the best aspects of your post. Hone in on your funniest lines, your most profound bits of advice, your best resources. Make them stand out.

4. Brainstorm headlines. There are probably one or two bloggers who’ve completely mastered the art of writing headlines for social media (you’ll know who they are). The rest of us haven’t been blessed with such skills. When you see a great headline, chances are it’s option #12 of a dozen choices. Few of us can think of a great headline straight away. Spend ten minutes brainstorming and you’re bound to stumble across something that works. A weak headline will cripple your post’s chances of success. It’s essential that you put a lot of work into getting it right.

5. Invest plenty of value in your post. Ever bookmarked or voted for something without completely reading it? We’ve all done it. It’s because of the ‘Wow’ factor — the presence of enough promised value in one place gets the reader enthusiastic about the post straight away. Instead of 5 tips, why not share 50? Instead of 9 resources, why not 40 or more?

7. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If your post looks good, it will draw readers in. Take the time to add images, thumbnails and formatting to what you create. Make your post a visual feast. With so much web content presented in a bland way, your post is guaranteed to stand out.

8. Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Readers will skip your waffly introduction. You can say the same in less words, particularly when you’re writing for an impatient reader: someone who wants to get straight into your tips/resources/opinions. Use your introduction to highlight why the reader should stick with your post. There’s a reason my post introductions mainly consist of: “In this post, I’m going to do this, this and that.” It’s what people really want to know: what am I getting in exchange for my attention?

9. Send messages with links. The best way to get a blogger to investigate your blog is by linking to them. We’ve got a natural desire to know what’s being said about us. If your post becomes really popular, each link inside it should send enough traffic outwards to be worth investigating. Be generous with your outbound links when writing your most popular post. It gives other bloggers an incentive to link to you, because it’s ultimately more promotion for them.

10. Utilize your network. If you want people to Digg, Stumble or Reddit your post, there’s no reason why you need to sit back with fingers crossed and hope it happens. Ask them. Your loyal readers like you. You entertain them, or teach them, or help them. If voting is a simple matter of clicking a link they’ll be more than happy to do so. Ask for votes in your post and email readers and social media influencers. In most cases you will need to get the snowball rolling. After that, others will do most of the work for you.

Bonus tip:

11. Examine what worked before. Study your most popular posts so far. What’s common about them? Why did they work? What needs did they address? In creating your most popular post, it’s important to learn by example and build on what has worked for your blog in the past. Another good idea is to analyze the most popular posts on other blogs in your niche. Why did they work? What’s remarkable about them? You can transfer those qualities over into what you write.

The Best Website Taglines Around the Internet

A tagline can make or break a website (well, maybe not, but it is cool to be dramatic). Below you will find a collection of the best taglines around the Internet. Some of them are funny, some are clever; but all of them deliver the message! Hopefully it will serve as inspiration.

1. The Straight Dope: Fighting Ignorance since 1973 (It’s taking longer than we thought).
2. Maxim Philippines: The best thing that ever happened to men … after women!
3. The Consumerist: Shoppers bite back.
4. Random Acts of Reality: Trying to kill as few people as possible…
5. Joshuaink: Same old shit, different day.
6. The Superficial: Because you’re ugly.
7. Smashing Magazine: We smash you with information that will make your life easier. Really.
8. The Best Page in the Universe: This page is about me and why everything I like is great. If you disagree with anything you find on this page, you are wrong.
9. Scaryduck: Not scary. Not a duck.
10. The Art of Rhysisms: Chronologically inept since 2060.
11. Needcoffee.com: We are the Internet equivalent of a triple espresso with whipped cream. Mmmm…whipped cream.
12. Ample Sanity: Life is short. Make fun of it.
13. Rathergood.com: The Lair of the Crab of Ineffable Wisdom - a load of stuff by Joel Veitch that will probably crush your will to live.
14. The Breakfast Blog: In search of the best eggs in town.
15. Dooce: Not even remotely funny.
16. Pink is the new blog: Everybody’s business is my business.
17. Shoemoney: Skills to pay the bills.
18. Oh No They Didnt’t!: The celebrities are disposable, the content is priceless.
19. YouTube: Broadcast Yourself.
20. Waiter Rant: Do you want Pommes Frite with that?
21. Newshounds: We watch FOX so you don’t have to.
22. Sabrina Faire: All the fun of a saucy wench, none of the overpriced beer.
23. Defective Yeti: A maze of twisty passages, all alike.
24. All About George: All about George Kelly… you know, if you go in for that sort of thing.
25. Go Fug Yourself: Fugly is the new pretty.
26. kottke.org: Home of fine hypertext products.
27. Slashdot: News for nerds. Stuff that matters.
28. Gawker: Daily Manhattan media news and gossip. Reporting live from the center of the universe.
29. Get Rich Slowly: Personal finance that makes cents.
30. hi5: Who’s in?
31. Fotolog: Share your world with the world.
32. Jezebel: Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women, Without Aribrushing.
33. Autoblog: We obssessibely cover the auto industry.
34. Boing Boing: A directory of wonderful things.
35. Perez Hilton: Celebrity Juice. Not from concentrate.
36. DumbLittleMan: So what do we do here? Well, it’s simple. 15 to 20 times per week we provide tips that will save you money, increase your productivity, or simply keep you sane.
37. Lifehacker: Don’t live to geek, geek to live!
38. Gizmodo: The gadget guide. So much in love with shiny new toys, it’s unnatural.
39. John Cow Dot Com: Make Moooney Online with John Cow Dot Com
40. WebWorkerDaily: Rebooting the workforce.
41. The Simple Dollar: Financial talk for the rest of us.
42. TrafficBunnies: Making your hits multiply like rabbits.
43. Mighty Girl: Famous among dozens.
44. The Sneeze: Half zine. Half blog. Half not good with fractions.
45. Buzz Marketing: Because everyone is entitled to my opinion.

Interface Design Trends for 2009

As time goes by, designers keep on improving interfaces for better user-experience. In this article, we try to single out some interface design trends going on in 2009.

Multi-touch everywhere

The rise of the iPhone made the multi-touch technology very popular. Now many devices are using it: MP3 players, GPS devices, laptops,… This brings much more intuitive interfaces, making it so easy that even one year old children can use it. In 2009 we will for sure see new multi-touch devices appear.

Web applications get out of the browser

Mac OS X or Yahoo Widgets have already gotten the internet out of the browser for quite a while, but the trend is getting bigger. Think of Twitter and Twhirl, and you’ll get a good example of how a website’s usability can be improved by taking it to an independent interface. Many external apps now support web services like Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed or Seesmic, will we see smaller websites getting out of the browser in 2009?

New controllers for improved usability

The Wiimote and the Logitech MX Air mouse are good examples of the way our interaction with interfaces will be changed through new intuitive navigational controllers. Removing the wires to the mouse was a first step towards more freedom of movement, being able to handle it in the air is a second step. The gaming industry has already been revolutionized by it, professional usage should be next.

Buttons go away for minimalist designs

The new iPod Shuffle recently stirred up controversy because it was considered too minimalist. The product is really easy to use, but some would argue that it loses functionality by over-simplifying the design. Another great example of simple minimalist interface would be Mino, the coolest video camcorder.

The trend of minimalist designs doesn’t only apply to products design, but also to web design with grid-based designs getting popular. In every aspect of design, the ease-of-use becomes the ultimate goal.

The mobile Web gets bigger, interfaces get smaller

The mobile Web has been trying to develop for a few years without being able to extend its reach. The first iPhone came out in 2007, it was a huge success from the start with its revolutionary multi-touch interface. However, the iPhone’s potential really expands with the release of the iPhone 3G and the App store. Over 20′000 apps are now available in the store, and this number keeps growing, giving mobile design more importance everyday.

With Safari for the iPhone, Apple’s mobile device has also popularized mobile browsing. Many major websites have created a mobile version just because of the iPhone. Other mobile phones constructors have also been forced to improve the usability of their phones and to make their devices more attractive.

Blog engines and CMS are also starting to release plugins to make it easier to publish for the mobile web. For Wordpress, you can try the iWPhone WordPress plugin and theme or the WordPress PDA & iPhone plugin.

7 Totally Unique Flickr Search Tools

Sometimes it’s simply overwhelming how many gorgeous photos there are on Flickr () - sifting through them to find a picture to use on your blog or to just admire can be a chore. Luckily for us however, Flickr has an API, meaning that some creative developers have built alternative Flickr search engines.

Whether you’re just looking for a more feature-rich version of Flickr search or want to perform search in a completely different way, these seven Flickr search tools will serve you in finding that perfect photo.

Do you have a favorite Flickr search tool? Be sure to share it with us in the comments.

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1. Compfight

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Compfight is a visual Flickr search tool that displays searched photos based on tags or text. Beyond showing you pictures that match your search, the other cool thing about compfight is that it makes it dead simple to search for creative commons pictures that you can use for your blog. It’s a simple and fast-loading interface for Flickr searches.

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2. Flickr Color Selector

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Are you looking for cool pictures, but you really need them to match your website’s color scheme? Flickr Color Selectr searches through images on the popular photos site by differentiating by color. Just pick your color on the RGB chart.

Note: this search engine is partially in Japanese, but it doesn’t impede you from using this particular tool.

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3. FlickrBabel

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FlickrBabel is a mash-up of Flickr search and Google Translate. If you find a cool image but can’t understand the underlying text, FlickrBabel uses Google () translate to interpret the message. It also supports location-based searches. Heck, FlickrBabel even has its own Twitter account

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4. FlickrStorm

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The Flickr search engine is smart, but it isn’t perfect when you’re looking for photos related to a topic? FlickrStorm comes to the rescue. FlickrStorm divides search into multiple columns and suggests search refinements with additional related keywords.

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5. Picishare

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If you’re just looking for a straight-up alternative to Flickr search, then PiciShare may be one to look at. It has all of the meat - tag search, relevance, whether it’s “interesting”, and more. It also allows you to limit the number of photos that appear if you’re on a slow web connection.

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6. Flickrriver

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Flickrriver is a search tool that focuses on recent and interesting pictures - specifically ones uploaded in the last day or two.

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7. Tag Galaxy

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I can’t even explain to you how “out there” Tag Galaxy is as a Flickr search engine. It represents Flickr tags as the solar system. The keyword you use is the sun, related keywords are planets, clicking on any shows you a planet full of pictures. It is, by far, the most dynamic way to search Flickr.

10 ways to Supercharge Internet Explorer 8

Internet Explorer has been designed to make real-world web browsing easier, and it's packed with useful features such as easy web searching, one-click access to Windows Live services and Web Slices to keep on top of your favourite sites. But it's capable of even more.

There's a huge range of accelerators, add-ons and toolbars that make Internet Explorer 8 even more useful. From social networking to shopping, document handling to downloading, these ten add-ons mean much better browsing. They're all free, and you'll find all ten - and many more - at www.ieaddons.com.

1. Research and shop for products

You know that shopping online can save you a packet, but how do you find the best deals - and make sure the product you're looking at is worth the cash? The Research and Shop For Products accelerator enables you to highlight a product name and look it up on the shopping engine Ciao!, which features unbiased user reviews and a constantly updated list of the best online prices.

2. Access your bookmarks anywhere

Foxmarks was about to change its name to Xmarks as we went to press, but no matter what it's called it's still very handy. The add-on stores your Favorites on the Internet, which means you can access them from any internet-enabled computer that you install Foxmarks on. It's particularly useful if you tend to use shared computers, if you have multiple PCs at home or if you'd like to use the same Favorites at home and at work.

3. Login quicker

One of the more annoying things on the Internet is when sites demand you register just so you can read an article or forum post. If you'd rather not hand over your details, BugMeNot can provide usernames and passwords that should let you in.

4. Get Facebook on your toolbar

You can use Web Slices to stay up to date with your Facebook friends' status updates, but the OneRiot toolbar takes things a step further by adding notification buttons below the Address Bar. These enable you to visit the various bits of Facebook (Home, Profile, Friends and so on) but more usefully they also let you see when somebody's sent you a friend request, whether you've any new messages in your inbox or whether anybody's tagged you in a photo. A version for MySpace is also available.

5. Get connetced

If like us you're on loads of different social networks, Yoono can save you a great deal of time and effort. In much the same way that multi-chat software enables you to connect to different instant messaging services simultaneously, Yoono can connect you to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr and FriendFeed, as well as AOL Instant Messenger, Google Talk, MSN Messenger and Yahoo. You can also share content with other Yoono users, for example by tagging web pages with "like" or "hate".

6. Book a holiday

Booking a holiday? Save yourself a lot of time, money and heartbreak by using this accelerator to look up resort or hotel names on TripAdvisor, where holidaymakers and travellers tell the truth about the places they've stayed - good and bad.

7. Define anything

If you've ever encountered an acronym and wondered what on Earth it meant, the Define Acronym accelerator will make your online life much more comprehensible. Simply highlight the acronym, select the accelerator and see definitions from the fields of IT, government, science, business and even slang.

8. Make the web sexy

Ever wished the Internet looked more like it does in Hollywood movies? With Cooliris, it does. Once you've installed the browser add-on it's just a matter of carrying out a web search at www.cooliris.com - but instead of text links, you'll see a wall of images that you can sweep through, zoom in and generally muck about with. It's fascinating, gorgeous and makes us feel that we're living in the future.

9. Go Pro

Don't let the number seven fool you: most of IE7Pro's features already work in Internet Explorer 8, and the program's next incarnation will be called IEPro to reflect that. As we went to press you needed to manually Enable IE7Pro from Internet Explorer's Manage Add-ons screen, but that should be fixed by the time you read this. So is it worth it? Oh yes. IE7Pro blocks adverts, enables you to navigate the Web by waggling your mouse and provides handy features such as closing tabs by double-clicking on them.

10. Search visually

If you're a shopping addict on a tight budget, ASOS.com's search plugin will be right up your street. Simply use the arrow in the Search box to select ASOS, type in the kind of item you're looking for, and you'll see stacks of results including pictures and prices. It's a simple and very useful tool, so expect lots of other retailers to offer similar search tools for their own shops.

10 things to put on your web design to-do list

Web design is a competitive business and a good designer needs to stay on top of current trends.

So what do you need to be doing to stay ahead of the game over the next few months?

We asked designers from some of the top agencies what they reckon should be on every designer's to-do list.

Here are the 10 things you need to work on...

1. Understand the smaller screen
Tom Dougherty of Delete says: "Industry professionals must be aware of mobile technology and the integration capabilities offered. iPhone represents the future of mobile tech. The quicker we get to grips with designing for the smaller screen, the better."

2. Teach yourself new skills
Cennydd Bowles of Clearleft says: "If you can't already, learn to code – this is your last chance to avoid obsolescence!" Eric Meyer adds: "Continue to learn and diversify skills. Diversity doesn't assure your survival, but it's a safer bet than narrow specialisation."

3. Practice good typography
Simon Crab of Lateral says: "Type is one of the fundamentals of design, yet it's a factor that's often overlooked or marginalised in the online environment. Starting from a typographic point of view helps define a clear structure and purpose in a design."

4. Focus on what's important
Jeffrey Zeldman of Happy Cog says: "Standards will cause designers and agencies to focus on content, usability, user experience and design excellence. Those already focusing on these will work harder and rise to the top. Those who haven't will need to get in gear."

5. Investigate frameworks
Danny McClelland of DannyWeb says: "With the use of ready-made coding libraries, more time can be spent on other things and keeping your clients happy. For example, there's absolutely no sense in making a similar application to WordPress from scratch."

6. Continue innovating
Eric Jordan of 2Advanced says: "Stagnancy breeds mediocrity, and no one wants mediocrity. Re-invention enables designers to stay relevant, on the cutting-edge and fresh in the minds of the industry. Those who don't will fall behind."

7. Diversify your client base
Marcus Greenwood of Webjam.com says: "In the current climate, a company's web budget may be reduced or cut, leaving you in a spot of bother if this happens to your main client." Diversifying your capabilities means you can appeal to a wider client base.

8. Think 'refurb', not 'relaunch'
Marc Peter of on-IDLE says: "Support clients in their time of need with ideas for revamping existing designs rather than full-scale new designs that affect everything from corporate literature to signage. Keeping costs low could help you to grow."

9. Master JavaScript
Eric Meyer of Complex Spiral Consulting says: "JavaScript performance and capabilities, coupled with support, will be key to nearly everything, including pushing web standards' adoption rates forward. Everything else is just secondary."

10. Bring about catharsis
Paul Annett of Clearleft says: "Campaign for Adobe to align prices globally and stop ripping off customers. Prices outside the US are often doubled, even on downloads, an issue that's drawn fierce criticism on the Adobe forum at http://tr.im/adobe."

How to Manage Writing for Multiple Blogs

Many people who are attempting to either make a living online or simply just trying to enhance or add to their income online have turned to blogging. There is a lot of information out there on how to make money blogging. It is difficult to make significant money from running one blog, especially right after starting up. Whether the money that comes in is from paid blog posts, link sales, or any other source, one of the ways to make money online faster is to run multiple blogs. The problem with operating multiple blogs is, no matter how many you wish to run, coming up with quality content for each of them at a fast enough rate that they will also continue to be frequently updated.

A great writing strategy when you are writing for multiple blogs is to write ahead of time. While some people find it time consuming and difficult to switch from one topic to the next while writing for multiple blogs, a successful strategy might be to concentrate on just one blog each day. For example, start writing for blog number one on Monday. During the course of the day you can explore different aspects of the niche or subject you are writing about and hopefully come up with four or five good posts. When Tuesday comes, start writing for blog number two in virtually the same way. When Wednesday comes, follow the same process and do the same for Thursday and Friday depending on how many blogs you have.

While you are doing this, you are accumulating blog posts that can be published at future dates. Yours might be the type of blog that gets updated daily or maybe three or four days a week, if that is the case then you have your posts already written. Now you can either keep them saved in a file on your computer and copy and paste them in each day, or if you are using Wordpress there is another option. When using Wordpress, you can save the posts as you write them and change the post date and time so that it will just appear on the day and time you want it to. Using this method, you could write a months worth of posts, changing the posts dates so that they will come out naturally over the course of the next thirty days. You could essentially take a vacation and no one reading your blog would be any wiser.

Writing for multiple blogs is a sometimes daunting task. But using time delayed posts and pre-written content can make it a lot easier as well as more efficient. In doing so you can multiply the amount of money you make with each new blog you start and monetize. In the end whatever method works best for you will work best for your blogs.

e-Text Editor Useful Keyboard Shortcuts

Here is a list of e-text editor shortcuts. Hope it helps.

File Operations

Ctrl+N : New file
Double-Click tab bar : New file
Ctrl+O : Open file
Ctrl+S : Save file
Ctrl+Shift+S : Save as
Ctrl+W: Close file
Ctrl+Shift+T : Go To File dialog

Editing

Ctrl+K : Delete to end of line; if the caret already is at end-of-line it deletes the newline.
Ctrl+Shift+K : Delete the entire line
Ctrl+Backspace : Delete to start of word (same as Ctrl+H)
Ctrl+Delete : Delete to end of word
Ctrl+(Shift)+U : Change case on word/selection
Alt+G : Inverse case on word/selection
Ctrl+Alt+U : Title case
Ctrl+T : Transpose, for swapping words or chars.
Ctrl+Alt+R : Run current line/selection
Ctrl+C : Copy (or: Ctrl+Insert)
Ctrl+V : Paste (or: Shift+Insert)
Ctrl+X : Cut
Ctrl+Z : Undo
Ctrl+Y : Redo. If there aremultiple branches to choose fromundo history will be displayed.

Selection

Ctrl+A : Select all
Ctrl+Shift+arrow : Select entire word
Alt+Left-mouse : column selection
Ctrl+Left-mouse : Multi selection
Shift+Home : Selects to the first non-whitespace char on the line, second time the white spaces will be selected as well
Shift+Ctrl+Home : Selects to the beginning of the document
Shift+Ctrl+End : Selects to the end of the document
Shift+Ctrl+L : Selects current line
Shift+Ctrl+W: Selects current word
Shift+Ctrl+Space : Selects current scope. If you keep hitting it, it will cycle through the available scopes.

Folding

F1 : Toggle current fold
Alt+F1 : Open current fold and closes all others
Ctrl+F1 : Fold all
Ctrl+Alt+F1 : Unfold all
Shift+F1 : Select current fold
Left-mouse : Fold end or fold indicator: Select fold, twice to fold
Mouseover : Fold end: Show fold preview Fold indicator: Highlight fold (useful for nested folds)
Navigation
Ctrl-Tab : Go to last active tab (or next tab if used repeatedly)
Ctrl-Shift-Tab : Go to previous tab
Alt+Ctrl+R/L-arrow : Next/previous tab
Alt+Ctrl+Up-arrow : Go to header/source
Ctrl+L : Go to Symbol
Ctrl+G : Go to line
Ctrl+F : Find
Ctrl+G : Find next
Ctrl+R : Replace
Home : Move cursor to the beginning of the line
End : Move cursor to the end of the line
Ctrl+Home : Move cursor to the beginning of the document
Ctrl+End : Move cursor to the end of the document
Ctrl+Up/Down-arrow : Scroll up/down, withoutmoving the caret
Ctrl+1-8 : Go to tab
Ctrl+9 : Go to last tab
Ctrl+0 : List open tabs

View

F3 : Show/hide revision history
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Document

Ctrl+M:Makemilestone
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Ctrl+Shift+B : Show bundle editor
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Esc : Kill current running bundle command

Projects

Ctrl+P : Show/hide project pane
Ctrl+Shift+P : Switch focus between editor and project pane (opening it if needed).
Arrow keys : Up/down and expand/close folder
Enter : Open file in editor
F2 : Rename
F5 : Refresh project view
Shift-F10 : Show contextmenu

Mouse Shortcuts

Double-click : Select word
Triple-click : Select line
Alt-doubleclick : Select scope

Top 10 Reasons to Join a Startup

Joining a startup company is a no-brainer. The pros far outweigh the cons. Whether you’re just graduating, or you’ve done your time “working for the man” now is the perfect time to make the jump.

Go work for a startup company.

Here are 10 reasons why:

1. More influence. With a smaller team, each person at a startup has more say. You should have more opportunity to voice your opinion and influence key decisions. And you want that, right?
2. More ownership. You might not be the founder, but you’re darn close. You should have some equity (or stock options.) Both a sense of ownership, and actual ownership are wonderful things; they’ll give you one more reason to work better and harder.
3. More meaning. The best startups are built on top of a strong purpose and vision; a raison d’etre that truly resonates. It’s a startup’s rallying cry and it provides other likeminded people with true meaning in their work.
4. More comraderie. Startup teams have to gel beautifully to succeed. Doesn’t mean you’ll always get along, but a little Saving Private Ryan never hurt anyone.
5. More diversity. There shouldn’t be much pigeonholing at a startup; you’re going to do and see a lot of different things. You will be thrown out of your comfort zone. You will get a chance to expand your horizons.
6. More learning. Startup environments are crash courses in business and life. You’ll learn more in 6 months at a startup than you will in 4 years at university.
7. More connectivity. With less (or zero) levels of bureaucracy, everyone is closer to one another. You should be well connected to your CEO as well as the network of customers, vendors, VCs, friends, etc. that surround the startup.
8. More emotion. Working at a startup isn’t a constant high. Far from it. But it is intense, and the emotional charge you’ll get on a regular basis is a worthwhile learning experience.
9. More future success. I don’t have any statistics to prove this, but I bet you that startup employees go on to bigger and better things. Whether it’s higher paying / more interesting jobs or starting their own companies, your resume and personal story benefit considerably from living the startup experience.
10. More fun. Startup employees have more fun. It’s just the way it is…

The job market for startup and early-stage companies is very strong. There’s no shortage of opportunity. Top talent can pick and choose amongst a slew of startups eager to hire. The risk is low.

Granted, not all startups are created equally. Not all startups may give you the benefits described above. You can’t dive in eyes closed and expect to find the perfect fit. Make sure you ask the right questions before joining a startup. Plenty of smart people have suggestions on the questions you should ask before joining a startup, so you shouldn’t have a problem being prepared.

But make the leap. Join a startup. It’s worth it.

Firefox Recommended Add-ons

Thriving ecosystem

Since its inception, Firefox has been a great platform on which web developers can build on top of. Recognizing that the core browser must be lean, the Mozilla team put together the infrastructure for creating add-ons. In this single decision, Mozilla created not just a fine browser - but a thriving community and a free marketplace, which links add-on developers directly to browser users. The developers are free to be creative and the users are free to choose the add-ons that they like. Such an ecosystem gives rise to innovation.

Add-ons point to the future of the web browser

Looking at the add-ons that were selected for the Firefox 2 showcase, in some ways they show us what the browser of the future may look like. Indeed that is something that Chris Beard himself alluded to - they view add-ons as a kind of test bed, pulling ideas from the best of them into the core product over time.

The majority of add-ons are focused on integrating web services into the browser, to boost user productivity. In a nutshell, add-ons are about shaving off clicks - but to be fair they do so much more. They create an enhanced, smarter, better browsing experience and ultimately save users' time.

Music, Weather and Maps

The FoxyTunes add-on integrates with your favorite music player and allows you to control the music you are listening to, right from within the Firefox status bar. There are a lot of handy features, my favorite being the ability to change the language and encoding - so that if you are listening to music in a language other than English, the title and the artist are displayed correctly.

Forecastfox brings the weather channel right into Firefox. On the install you select the zip code or city and the add-on does the rest. It relies on AccuWeather.com to bring you the latest current weather conditions, as well as a forecast of the upcoming weather. It is highly customizable and just perfect for the status bar.

Maps+ uses the Yahoo! Maps API to help the user look up addresses. To see it working, highlight any address - we tried a restaurant on this page - then right click and select View map from the context menu. The layered popup with the map appears right next to the address. You can control the zoom level of the map and customize the add-on in various ways.

Bookmarks 2.0

Storing and sharing web content is one of the most fundamental online activities. del.icio.us started the web 2.0 revolution by introducing tagging and social bookmarking. Since then del.icio.us itself and many other companies have enhanced bookmarks in many different ways. Let's look at the latest add-on advancements featured in the top twenty add-ons - and note there are a lot of bookmarking services amongst the add-ons.

Yahoo! released an updated version of the del.icio.us plugin, which replaces browser bookmarks with a view of del.icio.us posts. The StumbleUpon add-on is essential for fans of this service - it features a handy toolbar that lets the users rate and discover web sites. The Clipmarks add-on lets you clip pieces of the page, instead of bookmarking them. This is useful when you are not interested in the entire page but just want to store a paragraph or an image.

The Foxmarks add-on is seemingly simple - it synchronizes your bookmarks between all your Firefox browsers. What's great is that it works in the backround and does not require any input from the user, beyond creating an account. The JetEye addon in some ways is similar to Clipmarks, because it allows the user to collect clips. But it also enables arranging these clips by topic. Yoono is a social recommendation engine for discovering interesting or related sites. The BlueOrganizer add-on, developed by my company AdaptiveBlue, helps users to interact with books, music, movies, restaurants and other everyday things.

The developer add-ons

The showcase also contains three add-ons that help Firefox developers.

GreaseMonkey is an add-on that lets technically savvy users customize the look and feel of web pages. It has been very popular with the community, as it brings impressive possibilities for creativity.

FireBug is an essential debugger which supports JavaScript, CSS, HTML and much more. The Web Developer add-on contains an entire toolset, which is a must have for anyone who is doing web and add-on development for Firefox.

Blogging and RSS

Performancing add-on is a fully fledged blog editor built right into Firefox, which integrates with TypePad, Blogger, WordPress and LiveJournal (amongst others). Sage is a powerful feed reader - with the ability to subscribe to feeds, manage them and import/export via OPML.

Utilities

There are some very nifty utilities that can be integrated into Firefox:

• FireFTP integrates FTP into Firefox
• ChatZilla integrates IRC into Firefox
• Download Statusbar helps you manage downloads right in the status bar
• FlashGot is another download productivity add-on
• Adblock Plus lets you do away with advertisements

Other add-ons in the showcase

• Pronto is comparison shopping add-on which alerts you to potential price savings
• Jaja wires telephony right into the browser
• LinkedIn integrates the popular professional social network into the browser
• Cooliris lets the user preview a page by hovering over links
• Answers is a time saver add-on that lets you lookup information on Answers.com

Fun, useful and exciting

This Firefox showcase is full of interesting and useful add-ons that focus on helping users save time, by integrating web services into the browser. These add-ons point to a future of smarter, better browsers - that will be more aware of the patterns and use cases of interacting with information online.

So that's our take - let us know which of these and other add-ons you use and recommend!

Living on Loyalty, Trust and Big Ideas

There are plenty of reasons to work at a startup. But what those reasons fail to address are some of the core principles that drive startup success.

Not everyone is suited to working at a startup. Even if the reasons entice you, it takes a considerable amount of intestinal fortitude. The ride can be rough. And many of us are programmed to believe in an “us versus them” work environment — the relationship between employer and employee has to be at odds, fellow employees can’t be trusted, it’s a “dog eat dog” world.

All of that is true, to a certain extent, but you can’t succeed in a startup with that mentality.

Startup teams can’t succeed without immense amounts of loyalty, trust and faith in big ideas.

Alexis, an employee at reddit, nailed it perfectly in a recent blog post:

“At a startup, no one needs motivational posters. You work because it’s your damn job and you don’t want to let down the person at the desk beside you.”

“There’s something special about being in that always-sinking-boat of a startup and being able to count on all the folks sinking with you.”

Many people say sacrifice is a requirement of startup success. And in some ways they’re right, because you’re going to make sacrifices. You’ll work weekends, you’ll live on ramen noodles, you might get paid poorly…hygiene is always an issue. And yes, the grass is always greener on the other side. But none of that is really a sacrifice, because you want to be there. If you’re constantly looking at what you’re doing as a sacrifice, get out.
What do Loyalty and Trust mean to you?

Loyalty and trust are necessities if you’re going to build a great startup.

Each person in a startup team has to:

* be there for the greater good
* trust that the other guys will be there
* feel that everyone is putting in the same effort (note: founders put in more time & lead by example)
* be responsible for everyone else’s success
* be responsible to everyone else.

Employees have to trust that the founders know what they’re doing. Founders will make plenty of mistakes, but if a startup employee isn’t prepared to follow, things break down quickly.

Alexis won’t use the “going to war” metaphor for a startup, and he’s right - startups aren’t war. No one dies. No one’s maimed. No one’s tortured (well…) But the camaraderie that must exist within a startup team is very much the same as a unit in the army. You have to trust wholly and completely that I’ve got your back. If you don’t, you can’t succeed. And in a startup team, where each person is insanely important because the team is so small, if one guy isn’t on par with everyone else, you’ve got serious trouble.
Big Ideas are really about big challenges

Lots of startups are founded by dreamers. But in this day and age, when many people believe that web startups are becoming commodities, it’s not just about big ideas and dreams, but really about big challenges. And even a web startup that’s basically a commodity will still encounter big challenges. Succeeding will be a huge challenge.

And you can’t excel in a startup without having a deep desire to take challenges head on. In this case, having an “us versus them” mentality makes perfect sense — you are fighting against the rest of the world, so get ready. More than being ready, you have to want that challenge, otherwise you won’t succeed.

Loyalty, trust and big ideas — That’s what great startups are built on.

The Pros and Cons of Freelancing

Freelancers will often tout the benefits of freelancing. Just as much as people working full-time might do the same (It’s true! Some people love their jobs!) Startup entrepreneurs will rant and rave about the benefits of starting companies and working at startups. Assuming we like what we’re doing, we’ll promote it as “the way to go” and happily list numerous reasons to support our argument.

So what are the pros of going freelance?

Freelancers will rattle off a number of them as “accepted truths” - but let’s look at things a bit further.

The Pros of Freelancing

1. You get to be your own boss. This is 100% the case…until you land your first client. Then say a big happy hello to your new boss! Many freelancers do have more control over their work lives than people with day jobs, and this certainly can be a pro to freelancing, but oftentimes this argument is taken a few steps too far. Clients are bosses (regardless of how badly you want to call them “partners”) and they can be as, or more demanding than anyone else.

If possible, freelancers will gain the ability to set their own work schedule, determine their workload, and have more control over their careers. So there is a certain element of “being your own boss” that’s attainable through freelancing.
2. The money is better. Many people choose to freelance in order to work less hours, in which case it’s very hard to argue that the money is better. For those that are planning to freelance full-time they’ll often cite this as a significant pro to freelancing.

Your hourly rate should be higher as a freelancer. And if you were doing billable work 100% of the time, you should be making more money. But this is where you may run into issues. I always think about cab drivers in this circumstance. Cab drivers (in Montreal) make somewhere around $40-$70/hour based on the rate per minute or kilometer. That’s not too shabby…except for the fact that cab drivers aren’t collecting fares 100% of the time.

As a freelancer, you can’t possibly bill for 100% of your time. You’ll be doing sales (unless it all comes in as referrals, in which case you still have to do a certain amount of negotiation, pre-project legwork), administrative work, etc. Keep that in mind when you’re thinking about the bags of money you envision hauling to the bank vault.
3. You get to work on a variety of projects. This is very often the case. And for many this is an exciting prospect. Even more exciting is the possibility of choosing what projects you get to work on, as opposed to having a boss handing them to you. Just remember: With variety comes uncertainty. Will the new client be reasonable? Will they pay? Will you be stretching yourself too thin? For some, uncertainty is the spice of life (or at least one of them), but it’s important to realize its potential impact.

If you get to the point where you can pick & choose projects, this can be a huge advantage. But it takes time to get there. When first starting out, you may be accepting projects that are less worthwhile, interesting or rewarding (personally and cashflow-wise.)
4. You get to work from anywhere. For many freelancers, the appeal of working from home (or the cafe nearby) is too hard to resist. And I certainly see the appeal. But working from home is not without its challenges. You need a good office setup. You need to minimize distractions. You may get roped into doing chores around the house which you previously escaped from since you weren’t around! And you might become isolated. Oftentimes when people return to the world of day jobs from their freelance careers they point to a need for more camaraderie, and a greater opportunity to work with, and socialize with others.

If you are working at a day job and having the freedom to work anywhere (or at least from home) is important to you, I’d suggest you negotiate telecommuting time. More and more employers are amenable to this type of work setup.

My goal isn’t to burst any bubbles, only provide a perspective that may differ from what many freelancers espouse. Let’s take a look at some of the cons of freelancing…

The Cons of Freelancing

1. You do less of what you really like doing. That’s a pretty broad statement, and certainly won’t apply to everyone. In your day job you may be doing very little of what you really enjoy. But, when it comes to freelancing, there’s no doubt that you’ll do a fair amount of work outside of your expertise, in order to maintain and build your business. Think: Business setup, taxes, accounting, bookkeeping, sales, marketing, contract negotiations, project management, etc. Even worse, wait till a client doesn’t pay on time and you have to hound them — collections is miserable.
2. You have to manage yourself. Some might consider this a pro, but freelancers will often talk about the need for a ton of self-discipline. More than that, freelancers have a huge amount of responsibility resting on their shoulders. The buck stops with you. There’s nowhere to hide. You can’t blame office politics, bad bosses or co-workers, or anything else. It’s much more difficult to have a bad day or even take time off (ask freelancers if it’s harder to go on vacation…) because of the responsibility to keep things chugging along.
3. You have a lack of security. This is one of the most common “cons” people will point out about freelancing. There are three issues when it comes to security: job security, income security and.

Personally, I don’t believe in job security. Unless you’re part of a union, you don’t have a lot of job security. And to rely on job security as a means of keeping your job is a good way of finding yourself unemployed in a hurry.

So I don’t consider the “security” offered at day jobs to be much of a pro versus freelancing except when it comes to the steadiness of the income generated. Freelancers need to plan for uneven income. And this goes beyond having some money saved. Think about when your prospects set their budgets and spend their money. Map out month-to-month your busy and slow times, so in following years you’ll be more prepared.

Freelancers also have a lack of security when it comes to health benefits. Simply put, freelancers are at a disadvantage when it comes to benefits, pensions, and other rights given to full-time employees. Recently in Quebec (and perhaps in all of Canada), they changed the rules governing maternity and paternity leave, so that freelancers could take paid leaves just as employees can. But in most places around the world, those types of benefits are not given to freelancers.
4. You don’t own your work. This is the biggest con of being a freelancer. You’re doing work for someone else, and when you’re done, it’s handed over and that’s that. You retain the knowledge gained, and you may even be given some rights to reuse work you produce for a client, but ultimately you don’t own it. You will most likely not gain any future value from the work (although there are opportunities to negotiate equity deals for work, etc.) Still, it’s not really yours any longer.

As a result, you’re not building up any equity or long-term value as a freelancer. Your rates might go up. You might get more work. You might earn more money. But at the end of the day you’re still a mercenary going from contract to contract, hand-to-mouth.

This is why I’m an entrepreneur more than a freelancer or consultant. By starting a company I’m creating the opportunity to build value in something beyond just myself. I want to own what I do (or at least a piece of it) so that there’s something more tangible to hold onto at the end.

Deciding to go freelance is a major step. It has personal and financial implications that go beyond “simple” benefits like working from home, or setting your own schedule. You need to go into freelancing with your eyes open, aware that it’s not the panacea some claim it to be.

The pros of freelancing are attainable, but they’re goals not givens. If you succeed, then you will be working on projects you’re passionate about, you will be setting your own schedule, you will be making more money. Those opportunities exist, but like starting a new company, the amount of personal, emotional and financial investment can be extremely high and needs serious thought.

Top 10 Reasons Why Proposals Fail

Your business is great. You’ve invented something better than sliced bread. You offer such an amazing service at such a great price that people should be knocking your door down.

And they might be. But they’re all asking for a proposal.

Proposals are a fact of life. We all do them, and we’re all trying to blow our prospects away.

But most proposals are bad. Here are 10 reasons why proposals fail:

1. They’re too long. Proposals aren’t meant for “shock and awe” - don’t try and overwhelm the prospect into submission. Edit and cut. Cut and edit. There’s no perfect length for a proposal, but how many of your prospects really read the whole thing? They scan and skim till they get to the price and timeline. Keep it short.
2. They don’t reference the prospect’s pain. Why did the prospect ask you for a proposal? You better have a crystal clear answer to that question. Too many proposals don’t reiterate the pain properly. Skipping that makes the prospect feel like you don’t get it.
3. They’re too technical. I know you’re the expert in your field, that’s why I asked for a proposal. You don’t need to inundate your proposal with buzzwords and industry-hooey. A prospect only knows a smidge of what you know about your business, and they don’t really want to know more. Your proposal fails when it sells industry mastery using language I won’t understand.
4. They’re not selling benefits. Proposals that miss out on #2 and focus too much on #3 invariably aren’t selling benefits. If you’re not selling benefits you’re sunk. And for the love of everything that is holy, spell these out as clearly as possible.
5. They’re not well structured. Proposals are stories. And every story has a beginning, middle and end. Think of your proposal as a story and write it accordingly.
6. They’ve got spelling and grammatical problems. A proposal with spelling errors is unacceptable, it’s as simple as that. Grammatical problems may be harder to catch. Three tips: Read it out loud. Write short sentences. Have someone else read it.
7. They’re poorly formatted and packaged. Style counts! On top of that, your proposal isn’t the only game in town. You want to stand out right? Take some time to format things nicely. Add some pictures. Use bigger headers, smaller paragraphs, and color where appropriate. Think jazzy. If you’ve got substance, sell it with nice packaging.
8. They’re missing testimonials and client references. I’ve rarely seen a proposal with testimonials or client references. It makes no sense. Pepper in a few testimonials to spice it up and add a feeling of success. Add in some client references with contact information to give your prospect a clear message, “you know what you’re doing and you can prove it.”
9. They’re missing a thank you. Proposals are personal. You’re not writing installation instructions for IKEA furniture are you? Unless you’re sending a proposal unsolicited (which makes little sense) someone’s given you that opportunity. Thank them for it.
10. There’s no call to action. You submit the proposal. Now what? Um…um…um…oops. Put in a crystal clear call to action. It could be a follow-up meeting, contract signature, or something else — it almost doesn’t matter. What’s important is that there is a next step and you’ve explicitly told the prospect what it is.

Your business rocks. You work hard. You deserve more business.

Don’t let proposals get in the way. Do them right and you’ll win a lot more business.

How to Build Strong Relationships with Your Customers

Treat them like people.

* Don’t think of a customer as a disconnected voice on the phone.
* Don’t think of a customer as a waste of time.
* Don’t think of a customer as a pain in the ass.
* Don’t think of a customer as an open checkbook.

You will always have difficult, frustrating, stressful and downright rude clients. They’re people remember? And some people are just like that. But…

The quicker you can turn the relationship from client to vendor into person to person the quicker you’ll be successful with that client and future ones.

Find ways to open the lines of communication, meet on common ground and share interests.

Always react professionally, calmly and respectfully. Feel free to say what you think is best, what you think is right, but always maintain a tone of professionalism.

Get to know them, and the environment in which they work. Understand the motives behind their behaviors.

Losing sight of a customer as a person is going to lose you that customer. And, get jaded from bad experiences with customers, and you could lose more than just a customer or two…your business could be in peril.

Customers are people. Find out who they really are.

3 Easy Ways to Treat Your Customers Right

It’s simple really: Happy customers will buy more from you and tell more people about you. You want customers buying more and telling more people about you. You want happy customers.

So how do you get happy customers?

* Treat them well.
* Respect them.
* Be honest.
* Respond quickly.
* Be open and accessible.

This is all common sense. But common sense isn’t terribly common, is it?

Here are three stories that demonstrate how easily companies can take basic steps to keeping customers happy for life.

1. Turn your customers into advocates. Andy Sernovitz tells the story of Coffee Cup Software which has a list of 100 customers on its site that anyone can contact for information about the company. I don’t know how the company chose these 100 customers, but it doesn’t matter; they’re giving you unfettered and easy access to them.
2. Customer Relationship Management = Huge Long Tail Profits? Andrew Wee has a couple great examples of how he’s been treated by various financial institutions. Citibank sent Andrew a personalized cake for his birthday. What did the other 6 or 7 banks/trading companies he uses send him? Nothing. It’s so easy to send personalized, quality gifts and “thank yous” to customers, it just takes a bit of creativity and time. And the will.
3. You Don’t Even Have To Go An Extra Mile My own story of buying a gift. The cashier took a bit of extra time to make sure I was treated well, and had a great shopping experience. He didn’t have to bend over backwards; he just paid attention to what was going on and made sure I’d remember how pleasant it was to shop at that store.

It really doesn’t take much to treat customers well.

But you have to recognize the value. And then you have to be willing to take a bit more time, get a bit more creative, push a bit further…

It’s well worth it. Treating customers well is the path towards increased customer loyalty, word-of-mouth and business success.

I Love Customers

Customers are great. If you don’t think so, you’ll never succeed. Surprisingly, a lot of people consider their customers to be “the enemy” or a nuisance they’re forced to deal with.

Just remember that customers:

* pay the bills
* provide good feedback
* find bugs you’ll never find on your own
* use your product in new ways (which can result in new opportunities)
* recommend your product/service to others
* serve as references

Without customers you don’t have a business. It’s as simple as that.

And the key to everything I’ve listed above is having happy customers. Unhappy customers do none of the above. In fact, they do quite the opposite. And that’s bad. (I’m trying to be plain spoken and clear about this!)

The simplest way to have happy customers is through customer support. Of course building a product they want to use is a necessity - but you don’t even have to get that right out of the gate if you’re providing killer customer support.

Customer support isn’t complicated but it is demanding and time consuming. It requires fast response times, courteous replies and decisive action. Luckily for you, very few companies (especially startups!) provide anything remotely resembling quality customer support and so you can immediately use it as a differentiator.

And that’s really the key — leveraging great customer support into a differentiator.

This is especially true for startups. You might not think a startup has the time and wherewithal to focus on customer support, but it’s an absolute necessity. Invariably your product will be rough around the edges, bugs will emerge and there will be a shortage of features. On top of that, you’re the new kid on the block, so customers may look at you with a bit of concern (especially in a B2B market.) “How long will they last?” “Can they really provide the level of product quality and service we need?” To assuage those concerns, and balance against the shortcomings of an early product, use great customer support.

Doing so will increase the likelihood of good things happening (see the list above if you need a reminder.) Customer support can be a strong differentiator if you maintain it at exceptional levels, because you can be sure others won’t bother. They don’t recognize the value. And they’re losing business because of it.

10 Tips for Picking a Great Freelance Vendor

The pros and cons of freelancing are fairly well known. And freelancers have no shortage of stories about bad clients. But what about bad freelancers? Does such a thing exist? Of course it does. And there’s no worse feeling than paying someone a lot of money to do work for you only to have them screw it up or bail on you completely.

So what can a client do in a situation where the vendor screws up?

Honestly, not much. Certainly you should stop paying them, but recovering money already spent will be extremely difficult. The best option is to tell everyone you know about the bad experience and lousy vendor. Negative word of mouth (especially if you blog about it publicly) can put a real dent in a freelancer’s future, and it might spur them into action.

Hopefully, it never gets to that point, because if it does the results are never pleasant. Publicly humiliating people is unpleasant (even if it generates results), and no matter what, you’re likely to get screwed out of money and your project.

The best defense against bad freelance vendors is to pick them carefully.

When selecting vendors you have all the control. You can ask for as much information as you want. You can do as much research as you want. You hold most if not all of the cards, so it’s up to you to use them.

1. Get referrals. The best way to find a good vendor is through a referral. If a friend or trusted colleague recommends someone to you, that’s worth a ton. Having said that, don’t take the referral at face value and leave it at that. Do your own research. The person referring a freelancer to you may have different standards. But the best place to start when looking for a freelancer is through your own network.
2. Forget about the lowest price. Generally, you scrap the lowest bid that comes in for your project. (Often people suggest you scrap the highest bid as well, and go for something in the middle.) The lowest bidder may be a good vendor, but it’s a warning sign. You have to ask yourself, “Why are they lower than everyone else?” The answer doesn’t really matter (and it’s not worth trying to figure out), so just thank them and move on. Price is a critical component of picking a freelancer, but if it’s the most important point, you’re in big trouble already.
3. Ask freelancers to explain their price. It doesn’t really matter how a freelancer is pricing the project, you have a right to more details. This is especially true when the project has a fixed price. The vendor will give you a number - $10,000 - but what does that really mean? Ask the vendor to break it up on a deliverable-by-deliverable basis. Or they may have another structure (work, project management, profit, etc.) … it doesn’t matter, you just want to know. Vendors often don’t like doing this because of how they estimating the price of projects (often very poorly) and it requires more effort and leads to more debate on the minutiae of the pricing, but for the client it can be very worthwhile.
4. Get references. One of your most effective weapons against crappy freelancers is to check references. Freelancers will give you their best ones (of course), so it’s up to you to ask good questions of them to get real information. Find out how the vendor reacted under stress. Find out how effective the vendor was as a communicator. Find out if they ever blew any deadlines, and what they did about it. Don’t be shy when probing for information from references. And always ask these two questions: “Would you hire the vendor again? And, would you recommend the vendor to others?”
5. Hunt down your own references. Nothing says you can only speak to the references a vendor gives you. Why not find others? Presumably the vendor has a portfolio; so look up those clients and reach out to them without the vendor’s knowledge. You may find some surprises.
6. Leverage social networking. There’s a very good chance the freelancers you’re looking at are using Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking services. At minimum you should be doing a Google search and hunting around for information on them. Then dig a bit deeper and look for them on social networking sites.
7. Test them on smaller projects. If possible, give a freelancer something small but time-sensitive to do first. It might be a small piece of the bigger project, or something else completely. Test them. It’s a small test, but it’s better than doing nothing. You want to see if they deliver the goods, on time and on budget. You want to assess their communication and operational skills. You want to build a relationship with the freelancer to see if you’ll gel.
8. Spread payments out. There are very few reasons you should have to pay everything upfront. Break up the payments based on deliverables, with some amount upfront. The bigger the project, the more you can chunk up the payments. On smaller projects you can go 50-50 (50% due at the start, 50% due at the end), but most often I prefer 33-33-33 or 25-25-25-25. Of course that works well on fixed price projects. For hourly projects, you can pay based on milestones or at certain time intervals (i.e. every 2 weeks.) And make sure payment is due on your acceptance of delivered work not on the simple delivery of something (which may be crap!)
9. Define the working arrangement. How you communicate and manage the project with your vendor is critical for its success. So, define those terms early on. For example, do you want to make sure the vendor is available via Skype or another online chat tool? Do you expect weekly status reports? Do you want regular face-to-face meetings? How is the vendor expected to deliver the project? Think about the mechanics of the relationship and get agreement on those details as quickly as possible.
10. Hire multiple vendors. On bigger projects consider hiring multiple vendors. This comes with its own challenges — having them work together, integrating work from different people, etc. — but it can mitigate the risk of one vendor totally ruining your project. Try and compartmentalize the work they have to do, so it doesn’t require a lot of integration. If the vendors have to work together, try and get them in a room together and make sure communication is strong.

Picking a great vendor is definitely a challenge.

You may not be able to follow all of the steps above. What happens if you can’t find a referral, for example?

Do your homework. Research potential vendors and freelancers as much as you can. Demand whatever you want from them, because it’s your money and project on the line. The sooner you weed out lousy vendors, the better. And, by going through a rigorous selection process you give yourself the best chance of success. Freelancers may grumble and groan at the amount of effort needed to close the deal, but if it’s a good fit and they really want the work, they’ll do what’s needed to make sure you’re comfortable with them.